Late last night, comfortably tucked into my bed, Ninja Turtle PJ’s and hot cup of cocoa in tow, I was disturbed by the shrill tone of my Blackberry announcing a Facebook message had arrived. As it turned out, some helpful soul (who I am “friends” with apparently) was kindly letting me know that my services were desperately required. You see, if I joined the “If one million people join this group I bet we can save the Polar Bears from global warming” group, I could in fact end global warming. I joined obviously, as who am I to fuck with a Polar Bear’s right to sit down every once and a while. After forwarding the invitation to Al Gore, and feeling pretty good about myself, I set about updating my Facebook status. One minute became ten. Beads of sweat formed on my brow, and my cocoa became strangely bitter. There was no avoiding the obvious. I was in the grips of Status Writers Block.”What’s on your mind?” the little status bar taunted. For a while I played its crafty game, musing on random tit-bits from my day that may have been worthy. But was it asking me what was on my mind right at that moment, which as it turns out was “I wonder what I should write for my status”, or would a thought I had earlier suffice, like “is a midget-dwarf the same as a dwarf-midget, and would you be able to fit either into a shoe box? Would they prefer to be called a dwidget or a mwarf?” Despite these brief glimmers of hope, alas the Status Writers Block had me bad, and try as I might, nothing seemed to fit satisfactorily. Happy thoughts like, “Is my life so boring I cannot think of anything interesting to share?” and “What if I am forever statusless?” pretty much sum up how I felt lying there, creatively blank and hopeless.
Just as I was considering grabbing a toaster and taking a quick bath, out of nowhere I was slapped by the absurdity of it all. There was sweet F all on my mind, especially nothing that anyone I knew would give a continental about. It was 2:30am, I was tired and I was standing in a cold bath holding a toaster. Ridiculous. Imagine the Status Writing Process 4 years ago. Without Facebook it probably would have gone a little like this:
Ring Ring… Ring Ring…
Pete: Yawn, urgh.. eh hello?
Jordan: Hey Pete!
Pete: Jordan? What the hell bro, its 2:30am
Jordan: Well Pete, I was lying here about to fall asleep, and well you know, I thought you would want to know what was on my mind. Ask me what’s on my mind Pete.
There is no doubt where Pete would tell me to stick my status.
Whilst on this thought, further standard Facebook interactions came to mind, that in real life, would be nothing short of absurd. Below are a few:
